


if being afraid is a crime, then you & i hang side by side

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Recovered Memories, Unreliable Narrator, it's late and i'm tired, who o ps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7317436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The point is: he talks to you and you feel the way people must feel coming home. You know his body language and facial expressions and dips in his voice the way people must read maps or favorite books or listen to the notes of a piano."</p><p>(remembering is a process.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i re-watched the first two captain america movies and i'm about to find a way to watch civil war again and im dead inside pls help this boy

 

 

(???)

 

There is something like metal digging into your arm and your other arm is bent and twisted out of something like metal, something like metal squeezing your skull so tightly you think it might burst, if the shocks in your head and down your spine and twisting through your body don’t kill you first. Neither of those things happen. You don’t know how you feel about that.

You don’t how you feel about anything. You do not know how old you are.

 

 

 

 

(14)

You are fourteen years old and you elbow an older boy in the stomach and push him into his friend standing behind him. Your friend is standing behind you, and you think you might crush him if you were shoved back. You do your best not to be shoved back, because his mother wouldn’t be too happy if you brought her son home in more than one piece.

And you’re trying your best, you really are, but it’s really hard to keep someone from being crushed when they seem to _want_ to be— jumping in front of you when you could’ve easily dodged the fist that probably breaks his nose (??). You aren’t sure, because he tumbles into you and you both land in a tangled heap of limbs on the ground, and you really did try your best. 

His mother doesn’t blame you at all, thank god, because you’ve seen her when she’s angry, and it’s a terrifying thing. 

_Steve_ , she says with a smile in her voice, _loves playing hero._

_Yea,_ you say, _I know._

 

 

 

 

 

(???)

You do not know how old you are and you hear nothing and feel nothing but the cold air on your bare chest and something that isn’t quite pain and isn’t quite nothing ringing in your head, your blurring, spinning, reeling head. 

_You knew him,_ is all you can think, all you can breathe.

You knew him, you knew him you knew him you knew him, flashes of that rickety old staircase up to his apartment and spreading the couch cushions all over the floor and narrow shoulders suddenly broader than yours and you _knew him_ , he knew you, you knew him and you’ve never known anyone before, you—

— _wipe him and start over._

 

 

(20+?)

You’re somewhere in your twenties and you’re accepted into the U.S. army. 

Pearl Harbor left you shaken, and scared, and angry, and you’re an ‘able-bodied man’ that can at least throw a punch and can probably fire a gun. 

Your friend has a very very very long list that starts with asthma and maybe ends with heart palpitations and a mother who died of TB. 

Pearl Harbor (and the late night news broadcasts and frantic headlines and the hundreds of people fleeing to America for safety) left him shaken and scared and angry and restless and protective, and you know that, you know him, you know how he feels and how he thinks. 

He is not accepted into the U.S. army. 

“Don’t win the war ‘till I get there,” he says.

(A selfish, protective part of you hopes he’ll never get there.) 

(You think his whole need to be a hero thing has rubbed off on you a little over the years.)

 

 

 

(???)

You do not know how old you are. You do not know anything about you. 

You know other things sometimes— you know differences in weapons the way people must know differences between other people’s faces, and you know the eyes and voices of the Doctors the way people must know the words and rhythms of songs. You think in English and speak in German or Swiss or Italian or muttered mission reports that keep the Missions as nothing more than that (but you remember them All, at times when you can remember things, the way people must remember multiplication tables or characters in movies).

You know that you don’t know a lot of things, and you know that you don’t know if you want to know what those things are. 

You think you knew him. The man on the bridge. The man under your fist. The man you dragged out of the water.

You think you knew him. 

And you know you’re not going back There. You don’t know where you’re going. But you go. 

 

 

 

(25+??)

You’re somewhere in your late twenties now, probably, and your best friend is taller than you and stronger than you and has this shield thing he uses to beat people up. You might be jealous, if you weren’t so good with your gun. 

“You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” he asks, all cynical tones and a tiny bit of uncertainty, like he really thinks there’s a chance you’ll turn him down.

"Hell no,” you say, “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight— I'm following him.”

He smiles, a little, and you know he’s pleased. 

(He’s changed, a lot. But he also hasn’t changed at all. He still has no idea how to talk to women. For that, at least, you’re grateful.)

 

 

 

 

 

(70+)

You know that you are at least seventy years old, give or take a few decades, and you look at him and hear his voice and feel his hand on your shoulder, and you feel the way people must feel coming home after a long journey. _You knew him_ turns into _you know him_ , you know him, he knows you, he knows you better than you know yourself, now. He is the only one who knows you as something other than what you are, now.

“I don’t do that anymore,” you say. 

You don’t know what exactly you do, or what you want to do, or what you will do, because things are still coming back to you in bursts of diluted pictures and broken voices, but. You don’t want to do that (this? throwing a man over the rail like he is nothing, on instinct) anymore. 

You had forgotten what it felt like— wanting things, wanting real things. You haven’t wanted anything in a long time. 

You want to sit and memorize his face all over again, because it’s so different from what you remember, and so scarily similar— and it’s been decades and he still has the same damn hair style and over-dramatic morality and it makes you want to cry the way people must want to kiss someone.  You cannot believe you forgot the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, forgot the way his eyebrows fold when he’s being Serious, forgot the way he used to hold his fists up with bloody knuckles and a bloody nose because he barely bleeds anymore because he’s all big and powerful now, the way people must assume you are.

(You do not feel powerful, for all your drilled in training and your heavy, ugly new arm. You feel like if he leaves you will forget him all over again. You don’t want to forget. Never, never, never again.)

The. The point is: he talks to you and you feel the way people must feel coming home. You know his body language and facial expressions and dips in his voice the way people must read maps or favorite books or listen to the notes of a piano. 

And he looks at you the way people must look at something important.

He looks at you and you feel like you are finally home.

(Unfortunately, you are a long way from it.)

 

 

 

 

(??

?)

“I’m with you ‘till the end of the line, pal.” you tell him.

Weeks, months, years, decades later: “I’m not gonna fight you,” he tells you, all bloody and bruised like the boy back in Brooklyn, “Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”

 

 

 

(,,,,)

(You look at all these people, all these heroes, all the trouble he’s gotten himself into because of you, and wonder if this is the end of the line.) 

 

 

(recent??)

“I thinks it’s best for everyone,” you tell him. 

He looks at you, all sad and resigned and understanding, and you feel the way people must feel saying a long goodbye. 

Ice is something you’re used to, though, so it’s not something you’re afraid of.

(You are.) 

(But you know who you are this time.)

 

(You’re still not sure about your age.)

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (moments that carry through lifetimes and lifetimes lost in moments.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i found a way to re-watch civil war and now im back w/ more late night nonsense pls rlly just help this boy

 

 

 

there are times, in between, scattered like marbles across the floor:

 

 

(you are?? eighteen, maybe?? and you’re fresh out of high school, and there are the beginnings of a war brewing in the world, and you’re kissing a girl goodnight outside the run-down little apartment you share with your run-down little best friend.

you swing the door shut behind you, and he’s splayed out on the couch, asleep, and you wonder why you feel warmer here than you did with that pretty blonde girl on your arm.)

 

 

(you are??? not sure, you don’t know, but you do know that you are very far from some place you might have used to call home, in a smaller apartment than the one you sort of remember, and.

you sleep on a mattress on the floor and spend a lot of time pacing in the little space you have and looking out the window and scribbling down the bits and pieces that come back to you, the way people must record their sleeping hours in dream journals.

it’s close to nothing, but it is better than something like metal squeezing your head so tightly you think it might burst.)

 

 

(you stay in that run-down, little apartment, smack in the middle of Brooklyn, with your best friend who smiles like something good in a world that’s going to hell and wants to sign up for that hell because he’s always liked playing hero, you think. 

you stay with him for??? you don’t know how long.)

 

 

(and you stay in that different, smaller apartment for?? at least a few months, and you stayed in places before that, and you wrote down everything you did before you went to bed every night, if only to have proof that you have existed in places other than that Chair.)

 

 

(he’s taller than you now, and he throws an arm over your shoulder the way you used to throw your arm over his, and he smiles like something good in a world that’s going to hell. you feel the way people must feel when they are in the presence of a ‘true hero’. he’s been suited for the role for a long time, you think.)

 

 

(you find another little run-down, smaller apartment, you and him, after most things are said and done and he leaves his shield behind and you’ve both fucked everything up, and you stay there, you and him, for?? at a least a week, maybe.

he makes you coffee one morning, like the old days, and you spread the couch cushions all over the floor. he introduces you to you again, and when you hear his voice, you feel the way people must feel coming home.)

 

 

 

(it doesn’t last long.)

 

(he has given up everything for you, and you wish you could stay long enough to at least make it worth something.)

 

(you don’t know if it is, either way.)

 

 

 

(but ice is not something you are afraid of, and you're still not sure about your age.)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (((a single comment can save a life my dude))


End file.
